Democrats’ public image is sinking, and Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) histrionics are part of the problem.
Although President Donald Trump’s presidential approval ratings are ticking down alongside the value of people’s 401(k) savings, there has been no consonant rise in the public’s approval of Democrats. According to Navigator Research, a Democratic polling firm, a majority of voters (55%) say Democrats are “more focused on helping other people than people like me,” while just 27% of people say Democrats are focused on helping them.
Murphy demonstrates the problem.
This week, he released an unhinged video saying Trump “disappeared” a man named Mahmoud Khalil because he “organized against Trump’s political agenda” and that every American should worry because “once it becomes normal for the regime to disappear people simply for protest against the regime’s policies … there is no going back.”
Murphy was talking demagogic nonsense. What he left out of his little story is Khalil is not an American citizen, was detained for his actions opposing former President Joe Biden’s foreign policy, not Trump’s, and his actions in support of terrorism made him deportable under valid immigration law, as affirmed by the Clinton Justice Department.
Immigrants granted the privilege of legal permanent residence in the United States, as Khalil was, are still subject to immigration law, including 8 USC 1227, which gives the secretary of state complete discretion to remove any illegal immigrant they determine acted in a way that had “serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the U.S.
Since coming to the U.S. in 2022, Khalil led a campaign of harassment against Jewish students at Columbia University, participated in the occupation of university buildings, and called for the “total eradication of Western civilization,” which includes the U.S. last time we checked. This happened under Biden’s “regime,” not Trump’s, so Murphy’s claim that Khalil is some sort of anti-Trump resistance leader was patently false.
What is true is that Biden and the Democratic Party made it a policy to invite antisemites such as Khalil into our country so they could disrupt our higher educational institutions and harass Jews and anyone who supports Israel’s right to exist. Trump is reversing that policy, and he is starting with Khalil. This is a welcome move, reasserting America’s adherence to what is good and true and a revived toughness in dealing with those who take up arms or support militant evil and lies.
This is not the first time Murphy left out key facts to make misleading claims about Trump and the new Republican administration. Last week on the Senate floor, the ambitious congressman falsely said Elon Musk forced the Federal Aviation Administration to cancel a contract with Verizon so it could be replaced with his own rival, Starlink. The contract was not canceled. Murphy also lambasted Trump as corrupt for selling seats for dinners at Mar-a-Lago, a practice that, while aesthetically unpleasing, has been done by every Democratic president since at least former President Bill Clinton. Perhaps Murphy’s judgment has been skewed by taking up with a woman, not his wife, who is decades younger than him and runs an organization that passes off Democratic Party propaganda as local news.
THE TARIFF CHAOS THREAT TO THE TRUMP AGENDA
Trump has always been blessed with incompetent enemies, and Murphy’s determination to become the face of Democratic Party resistance to him is another blessing. Murphy’s apparent inability to tell the truth, his campaign to undermine the legitimacy of federal courts, and his determination to defend the Khalils of the world make him an ideal Trump foil. His false representation of the facts of the Khalil case showed he knows its realities support Trump’s actions.
If Democrats want to know why an increasing majority of voters say the party is “more focused on helping other people than people like me,” they should ask Murphy why he was so eager to defend an antisemitic immigrant such as Khalil, while he had nothing but silence for Laken Riley, a young woman murdered by a man who should not have been allowed into the country.